Hey, Y'all.

Anyone who’s talked to me for five seconds knows I’m a huge fan of Food Network. I wake up every Saturday morning to their weekend lineup of Rich Ladies in Unattainable Kitchens, featuring Ina Garten, Ree Drummond and a southern woman named Paula Deen. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?

Last Saturday, I tuned in to Paula’s Best Dishes and was stunned at how much weight Paula had lost. So much, in fact, that she looked exactly like Giada De Laurentiis. And my thoughts turned immediately to the poor Food Network programming coordinator who had to spend Friday afternoon erasing Paula Deen from existence.

I’m admittedly one of those embarrassing Americans who has spent more time glued to this story in the past three days than I have reading up on Syria in the past three months. You could say I’ve been on it like a hamburger on a donut.

And it’s because I love(d?) Paula. When I first heard the headlines, I assumed there was some misunderstanding and this was just sensationalized tabloid fiction. But, not so much.

As much as has already been said about this story, there are a couple of nuances I haven’t seen covered that I think are worth noting:

This is about more than her saying the N-word.
If you want to get real depressed, real fast, check out the torrent of comments from Deen supporters on Food Network’s Facebook page. Arguing that her words have been “misconscrewed,” as one English major put it, they’re throwing together a well-known recipe for American ignorance: 1 cup “Black people are actually more racist than white people,” 3 tablespoons “There’s no free speech left in this country,” 2 teaspoons “Food Network bowed to liberal pressure,” and a healthy pinch of “Thanks, Obama!”

But if admitting to saying the N-word had been Deen’s only offense, I honestly think she could have overcome it. I’m not saying she should be given a clean pass on it, by any means, but addressed sincerely and candidly, it could have become a “teachable moment” about the legacy of Southern racism and the evolution of Southern culture.

It’s the antebellum-themed wedding stuff that reveals something deeper. Even though she says she was merely complimenting the professionalism of the black servers at the restaurant where she’d been dining (and WTF is up with that place?), she was still making note that they were black, and looking back wistfully at a time when such service was indentured. That’s impossible to defend on any level.

Food Network didn’t fire her for being racist.
I mean, it didn’t help. But the simple accusation that Food Network dumped Paula Deen for saying the N-word is incomplete. My guess is Food Network tried to help her out after the initial story broke, and that they got her booked with Matt Lauer on Today. She had a chance to go on there and offer total transparency and contrition. If she had broken down Ann Curry-style, all the better.

Instead, she ditched the show due to “exhaustion,” showbiz speak for “I’m a hot mess,” and went rogue with a series of amateur, emotionless and borderline creepy apology videos on YouTube.

There’s nothing like hostage-video production values and off-camera chatter from your staff to really help sell how serious you are about your sentiment. (UPDATE 6/24: Deen announced today she’ll now appear on Today this Wednesday morning.)

My bet is Food Network execs took one look at those videos and thought, “We’re done.” At that point, she wasn’t so much a bad person. She was a bad employee.

Enough with the butter jokes.
On a much lighter note (so to speak), it’s outdated and lazy to use Deen as the go-to punchline for adding pounds of butter and oil–in her case, “ohllll”–to her dishes, when even the most cursory glance at any other Food Network show will reveal most chefs share this secret trick. (Ina Garten’s not exactly cooking with tofu–though if she did, it’d be the good kind.)

Plus, Deen really had changed her tune after losing all that weight last year. Her recipes were becoming healthier, she started featuring fresh vegetables and low-cal subsitutions, and guest stars like Kevin Gillespie were helping give the show a more modern feel.

But that’s all in the past, at least for now. It’ll be interesting to see if or when Deen tries to make a comeback. If I were her publicist, I’d see if I could make this happen again:



Since Oprah and Paula have already bonded over the experience of early morning catfishing in expensive pajamas, and since OWN needs all the ratings it can get, it’s Deen’s best shot at redemption. I say in six months, look for her to sit down with Her Royal Media Highness and, instead of catfish, feast on a big ol’ plate of crow.